ROSETTA FINDINGS:
COMETS DID NOT BRING WATER TO EARTH

The landing of the Philae probe on Comet 67P on 12 November was a magnificent achievement. Despite the bumpy landing and early loss of signals due to lack of power from the solar panels, important scientific results are being obtained. One of the most significant relates to measurements of the water found on 67P:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-30414519

Results show that the water on the comet is unlike that on our planet, and helps answer the question of whether a bombardment by comets brought water to earth billions of years ago.

Two mass spectrometers on Rosetta have been able to test the gas streaming off the surface of the comet. Findings indicate that the ratio of heavy water to 'ordinary' light water is three times higher than on the Earth.  Heavy water has the hydrogen atom replaced by the heavier atom of Deuterium.

Professor Kathrin Altwegg from the University of Bern said 'This means that this kind of comet could not have brought water to the Earth'.

Although previous research on other comets in different regions of the solar system have given different results,  Prof Altwegg believes that asteroids, which formed closer to the Sun than comets, seeded our oceans.

Comment: Although Philae is currently 'asleep' due to lack of power from its shaded solar panels, there is hope that as Comet 67P moves closer to the Sun the batteries will recharge sufficiently to enable further measurements to be made on the comet's surface. This has been a highly successful scientific mission already yielding valuable data which will extend our knowledge of the solar system.

JOHN CLARE:  ADDRESS TO PLENTY - IN WINTER

Now the cutting Winter's come
'Tis but just to find a home,
In some shelter, dry and warm,
That will shield me from the storm.
Toiling in the naked fields,
Where no bush or shelter yields,
Needy Labour dithering stands,
Beats and blows his numbing hands;
And upon the crumping snows
Stamps, in vain, to warm his toes.

Comment:  A few lines from John Clare's poem 'Address to Plenty: In Winter'

SCIENCE HAS SPOKEN

The ICCP Synthesis Report has been published in Copenhagen, as the Secretary-General of the United Nations said: 'Science has spoken. There is no ambiguity in their message. Leaders must act. Time is not on our side':
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-29855884

The Synthesis Report says the unrestricted use of fossil fuels should be phased out by 2100, if the world is to avoid dangerous climate change. Most of the world's electricity can, and must, be produced from low-carbon sources by 2050. 

If not, the world faces severe, pervasive and irreversible damage. Inaction would cost much more than taking the necessary action.

The Report states:

Warming is unequivocal and the human influence on climate is clear;
Since the 1950's the observed changes are unprecedented over decades to millennia;
The period from 1983 to 2012 was likely the warmest 30 year period of the last 1,400 years;
Warming impacts are already being seen around the globe, in the acidification of the oceans, the melting of arctic ice and poorer crop yields in may parts;
Without concerted action on carbon, temperatures will increase over the coming decades and could be almost 5 C above pre-industrial levels by the end of this century. 

Reducing emissions is crucial if global warming is to be limited to 2 C, the threshold of dangerous climate change.

The Report suggests renewables will have to grow from their current 30 % share to 80 %  of the power sector by 2050. In the longer term, fossil fuel power generation without carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology must be phased out almost entirely by 2100.

CCS is proving slow to develop. So far the world has only one commercially-operating plant of that type, in Canada, and progress making the technology widespread and affordable is far slower than many had hoped.

Comment: The message from science is clear. Now the 2015 Paris summit meeting must deliver a new global treaty on climate.

JOHN CLARE: THE SHEPHERD'S CALENDAR 
 
NOVEMBER

Yet but awhile the slumbering weather flings

Its murky prison round – then winds wake loud;

With sudden stir the startled forest sings

Winter’s returning song – cloud races cloud,

And the horizon throws away its shroud,

Sweeping a stretching circle from the eye;

Storms upon storms in quick succession crowd,

And o’er the sameness of the purple sky

Heaven paints, with hurried hand, wild hues of every dye.

 

Comment: One verse from John Clare's 'November'

 

 

JOHN CLARE,  POET  (1793 - 1864)

“Saw three fellows at the end of Royce Wood who I found were laying out the plan for an ‘Iron rail way’ from Manchester to London – it is to cross over Round Oak Spring by Royce Wood Corner for Woodcroft Castle. I little thought that fresh intrusions woud interrupt & spoil my solitudes after the Inclosure they will despoil a boggy place that is famous for Orchises at Royce Wood end.”

The Journal 4 June 1825
From: The Natural History Prose Writings of John Clare. Edited by Margaret Grainger. Clarendon Press. 1983

 

Comment: John Clare's prose writing is less well known than his poetry. This brief extract retains his original spelling.

IPPC MEETING TO PREPARE SYNTHESIS REPORT

Scientist and officials of the Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change (IPPC) are meeting in Denmark preparing a Synthesis Report for release on Sunday:
http://bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-29803811

The Synthesis Report will form a major document for the Paris Summit on climate change in Paris in 2015, when the UN hopes to deliver a new global treaty on climate change. It brings together three earlier reports by the IPPC on the physical science, the impacts and the potential methods of dealing with climate change.

Early drafts of the Synthesis Report indicate that it underlines again the near certainty of scientists about global warming and man's role in it. Each of the last three decades has been successively warmer at the Earth's surface than any preceding decade since 1850. According to the draft, the period between 1983 and 2012 was very likely the warmest thirty year period  of the last 800 years.

Comment: The Synthesis Report will need to address the tensions between the developed and developing world on tackling climate change.

COMET SIDING SPRING SKIMS PAST MARS

Comet Siding Spring made a close pass by Mars on 19 October:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-29665247

This was a unique event: the first time a comet from the Oort Cloud has been observed close to a planet. Since there are a number of observation instruments on the Martian surface and in orbit, this was in effect an outpost scientific observatory on Mars able to gather data on the comet's approach. Siding Spring passed 139,500 km from Mars.

The Curiosity and Opportunity surface rovers were trying to photograph the comet, while the Reconnaisance Orbiter and other satellites attempted to resolve the comet's shape, study its gas and dust shroud and the material trailing away, and examine any interactions with the Martian atmosphere.

The comet was first observed in January 2013 at the Siding Spring Observatory in New South Wales, Australia. It was possibly knocked from the remote Oort Cloud towards the inner solar system by a passing star. It is believed that the comet is very little altered from the time of its formation more than 4.5 billion years go, and may have been travelling since the dawn of man.

Comment: The initial photographs from Mars are historic but unspectacular. Hopefully detailed analysis of all the data obtained from the comet fly-past will reveal valuable scientific insight into this primordial comet. It is truly wonderful that all the instrumentation that has been placed on and around Mars has formed such a useful science laboratory outpost in place to study this unique event.